From Halloween to Christmas

Ansel's napkins from the fall holiday season, more or less.
Certain themes stand out: Rocket Raccoon and the Guardians of the Galaxy, Sea Otters, Ewoks and Star Wars.

Stitch and Paddington Bear

Insipidly cute, yet quite destructive:
Movie "pets" my son would really like to have live at our house.

I am ashamed to say that  despite my constant children's literature promoting enthusiasm, I somehow managed to neglect "A Bear Called Paddington" and all of its over 150 subsequently published sequels and spin-offs.

Despite not having read any of the books, Ansel is quite enthusiastic about the impending release of the Paddington Bear movie. The trailer seems to foreground the bear's capacity for inadvertent yet humorous mayhem.

After watching "Lilo and Stitch," we've spent the last few weeks discussing how nice it would be to have a pet like Stitch. I guess this means one that is vaguely dog-like, cute, funny...and a sentient alien that can talk.

I suspect after "Paddington" opens later this month, we will be debating the merits of pet bears.

Maleficent with Dog Hands and Darth Vader with Kitten Fists from Disney Infinity, Blue Whale Eye

 

Last night I was still ruminating on the Disney Infinity game and the possibility of putting random, or not so random, characters together.  For whatever reason, Star Wars, and thus Darth Vader, is not available on the program.  Maleficent is available, but she is in her Angelina Jolie-ish form, wearing a black catsuit without purple trim and she has disappointingly non greenish skin. 

"Gravity Falls" derived Kitten Fists can in fact be added to  the game.  Puppy Fists, "101 Dalmations"-style or not, are not a real thing... But perhaps they should be.  If you doubt the reality of Kitten Fists and have not yet experienced enough annoyance today, visit this link. Be warned that the insane meowing continues inconceivably for the full 14 minutes and 22 seconds run time of the video. And yes, I agree that it is pathetic that I know that.

Since I seem to be unable to stop myself from adding miscellaneous things to this post, here is a previous instance of the dog/kitten hand from the summer of 2013: 

I suspect that like the above, the Maleficient/Vader napkin will be deemed too weird and will not go to school any time soon. The Second Grade is on a field trip to the New York Natural History Museum today, so I made a truly disposable napkin for the day's bag lunch. While taking my 3 minute morning shower, I had the idea that I was going to draw a Blue Whale's eye actual size, which would be educational and maybe a little cool.  As it turns out, at least based on some very superficial research, Blue Whales' eyes are only about the size of Cows' eyes, so my attempt at realism was not particularly impressive.  (But Giant Squids have much larger eyes. I will give that information further consideration) 

Since I spent all of 90 seconds on this napkin- in addition to the haphazard 2 minutes of Whale eye research- the results were about what you might expect. Sadly, I discovered that all of my blue markers are in need of refill.

 

The Blue Whale at the AMNH.  Click on the photo to visit the museum site.
That eye looks larger than I drew it, doesn't it?

Stitch and Donald on Disney Infinity

Characters with poor impulse control mix it up in a video game:

Through yet another marvel of internal marketing, our kids have become convinced that Stitch and Donald are the funniest, most wonderful characters that can be played on Disney Infinity.  We would have to purchase them, of course, because we do not own them yet.  I do wonder what exciting new character will be suddenly shown to be desirable when the system senses that we have bought these two?

When I put Stitch and Donald together, the results were a bit darker than I intended... and a bit negative for Quaker second grade lunch....

I was thinking that I wanted to make their heads large, and wouldn't it be nice to stack them instead of placing them side by side? and wouldn't it be clean formally to surround Donald's head with the blue both of his clothes and of Stitch's fur?

Somehow my half-conscious/ half-baked compositional planning resulted in strangulation.

Perry, Groot and Rocket:

Perry the Platypus from "Phineas and Ferb" usurps Rocket's shoulder spot.
Maybe this Disney corporate crossover thing might lead to some conflict?.

The Disney Infinity game got us talking about the potential for ridiculous team-ups from the greatly expanded Disney roster. (Or ridiculous death matches, if we are not thinking about a napkin for a Quaker student lunch...)  Ansel did not appreciate any of my suggestions along the lines of "Jiminy Cricket and Darth Vader" ("How do you expect to be a real boy if you don't listen to your conscience?") or "Bambi Meets the Hulk".... ("Hulk smash girly deer!")

He accepted the Perry, Groot and Rocket image this morning.  Perhaps he was just relieved that I had not drawn something like "Snow White visits Jabba the Hut."

Rocket Raccoon Lifts the Winter Soldier

Last week Ansel finally redeemed multiple rewards that he had earned this fall (known as bribes in less indulgent circles) and picked out the Disney Infinity game.  He was relatively unenthusiastic about Skylanders, another console-plus-endlessly-expensive-figurines style game.  But Disney Infinity won him over with the possibility of playing as the Guardians of the Galaxy and other Marvel people as well as other Disney and Pixar characters.

Don't know about you, but the pop culture juggernaut of Disney/Marvel/Pixar/Star Wars is making the whole idea of crossovers oddly less interesting for me.  My sons claim to agree, but I am pretty sure that they do not have the same reservations about corporate monoliths that I do. Certainly the "Phineas and Ferb"and  "Star Wars" episode was nicely done.  Ansel was quite excited to see the "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "Jessie" Halloween episode. (If you are unfamiliar with "Jessie," please don't ask) But once everything is possible and Sleeping Beauty can have a light saber battle with Darth Vader...Well, let's just say that just because it can happen, doesn't always mean that it should...Unless we are talking about drawings on napkins, of course.  Ha.

At any rate, We bought the Infinity Marvel starter set and a couple Guardians characters....because... how could we possibly not have Star Lord and Rocket?  I will admit that I don't really understand the logic of the game at the moment- i.e., which character can play in which world, and who else might appear in that world.

But the configuration of characters that we have somehow makes it possible for the person who is playing as Rocket to snatch up the Winter Soldier- a character we don't own, who just seems to wander aimlessly around the set- and carry him around like a piece of lumber...and then toss him off the edge of the world...again, and again, and again.

I am not sure why the Winter Soldier character seems OK with this, or what is gained by the operation, but my sons certainly seem to enjoy doing it.


Of course Rocket looks like the below in the actual game, so please forgive my...would we call it "artistic license?" and/or just sloppy rendering of his costume?